(((O))) Review: Anton Roolaart – The Ballad of General Jupiter

How long has it been? 11 years? Yes, it is. It has been 11 years since I tackled Anton Roolaart’s 2014 album The Plight of Lady Oona which I covered on my blogsite, Music from the Other Side of the Room, when I was ready to finish my semester and graduate from Houston Community College, which is now Houston City College (HCCS).

I first became aware of Anton when he became a radio DJ on his online streaming station, ProgRockRadio.com was where I was introduced to him. I would request songs from bands like Van der Graaf Generator, Premiata Forneria Marconi, and then Renaissance. That was where I first heard Annie Haslam’s voice and the most requested songs I would pick is ‘Jekyll and Hyde’ from their 1979 unsung gem Azure D’or album and Van der Graaf’s ‘Every Bloody Emperor’ from their 2005 comeback album Present.

That was where they would play music beyond the Floyd’s, Genesis’, and ELP’s, but new and old bands that caught my attention. Now, here we are in the year 2026 as Anton has flown across the landscape and flown over to MoonJune Records in collaboration with Wandering Willow, unleashing his new studio album, The Ballad of General Jupiter.

The album is a collection of stories Roolaart has painted throughout his own visionary mind, grappling themes of green, corruption, injustice, and chaos. Since his return back to his homeland in the Netherlands five years ago, it has become an emotional return for him to see what he had missed and how much the country has changed.

And to be allowed to have people like Bob Kirby, Wouter Schueler, Rave Tesar, Rozh Surchi, Mark Donato, and newscaster correspondent Sean Carolan, Roolaart puts you right in the middle of the dystopian landscape that General Jupiter is enduring. From the moment ‘Amsterdam’ beings we hear train sounds, a voice telling our return to the Netherlands and having a pleasant stay, it swirls in this ambient, mellotronic turned Hackett-like voyage of what Anton had been missing, but a pleasant journey to see that he will never give up his home country.

It has some emotional boundaries with its spaced-out Leslie piano soaring through our solar system, wah-wah guitar textures, lukewarm-crisp acoustic guitars, choirs from the mellotrons, and segueing into the darker territories on the title-track. It has that raunchy yet bluesy and heavier arrangement which tackles a slowed-down version of Hendrix’s Are You Experienced-era.

But adding in that Italian Prog-like corker into the mix. Anton knows his source material very well. There are sections reminiscent of unsung Canadian maestro’s Klaatu and their mangum opus, Hope which brings to mind. And Anton himself really sets the control to make his journey across the galaxy before leaving a letter to his loved one, knowing that he’ll be back home safe.

It then goes into this carousel-like organ groove with wah-wah guitars and the reason why he’s called General Jupiter, the situation that Earth is under, and the future ain’t what it seemed to be, and you can quite imagine what both Ayn Rand and George Orwell had been describing in their novels and visioning what we’re seeing then and now. It then ramps up into the galloping, turned layered, and melancholic wonders for ‘The Cry of Seven Doves’.

The spirit of Yes flows brilliantly well in Roolaart’s D.N.A and bits of the moog, bass, and symphonic preparation with its ascending guitars, ready for take-off. Not to mention the moog channeling Rick Wakeman’s time with the band during Close to the Edge and Topographic Oceans-era.

But it’s ‘Touch Your Desire’ which becomes a lightning bolt, a journey into the unknown, ushering its late ‘70s/early ‘80s textures with its Who-like ornaments while ‘Star Child’ provides a sense of loss, tragedy, and reflecting its acoustic and folky arrangements, set in the spotlight of its awesome power.

But its ‘Rain’ which has its Fleetwood Mac roots on ‘Gold Dust Woman’, floating into the void, setting in thunder, middle-eastern arrangements, medieval nightmares, tidal-waving wah-wah’s, you name it! Then, once ‘And the Sky turned Yellow’ begins with this orchestral keyboard effect, followed by acoustic fingerpicking, flutes, sax, and pounding drum beats, Howe-like guitar improvisation, it returns to its Yes form with a stroke of lightning, ready to attack at any second.

The only weaker track is Anton’s take of Yes’ ‘Yesterday and Today’ from their 1969 sole self-titled debut. It’s not a bad cover, but it kind of drags a bit, not staying true to the original. I wished that he had punched it up a bit more and give that strength of power the original had done before.

All in all, The Ballad of General Jupiter is a great way to kick 2026 off with a big bang and hopefully we’ll get to see more from Anton’s next adventure that will be waiting for us in the years to come in the late 2020’s. And what an album it is.